Landowner run in on a stream near Pineville

[jdmidwest]

11 hours ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

I do.   We used to call it Handicap now Ackerman.    The river split right there and if you were on the north leg of the split he would go nuts.  

I was thinking Handicap, but I have slept since then.  Turkey Bluff came to mind too.  I did get some bait guys caught from Fish and Game there one time possessing more than a limit from a Catch and Release area.  Bag phones came in handy then.

[jdmidwest]

8 hours ago, T.J. Clarke said:

I am a calm, nice, friendly person but there are way too many crazy stories out there for my taste.  The pocket in the front of my chest waders is the perfect size for my 2-inch scandium light weight .357 magnum.   We owe it to our family and each other to be able to return from the outdoors safely.

I looked at one of those when I was hitting Alaska in 44 mag.  All I could think about was my fingers going numb after a sesson with my 6" 686 357 mag with full power 158 gr hollow points.  But they feel great and handle well, probably could squirt a few round out on target before I give up......

[dan hufferd]

I owned a portable welding service for over 10 yrs, building pipe fence kept my family fed, I figured my average footage per year was around 20,000 ft, so I have a little experience with property lines and the like. 

I recall building fence near carthage a long a water way, the client wanted the fence to cross the ditch and butt into the buttress of the bridge. The county commissioner happened to drive by, he informed me that I was not allowed to cross the right-of-way with any private fencing. There were people driving from the road along the creek and making a mess, this was an attempt to keep people out.

That being said I see many people (nearly everyone) fencing all the way to a bridge, but technically the right-of-way is government property. 

As far as legal access I have no idea, but I know you can not cross private land to gain access to the water.

Too much open ended nomenclature in the law about this.  

[Al Agnew]

15 hours ago, dan hufferd said:

I owned a portable welding service for over 10 yrs, building pipe fence kept my family fed, I figured my average footage per year was around 20,000 ft, so I have a little experience with property lines and the like. 

I recall building fence near carthage a long a water way, the client wanted the fence to cross the ditch and butt into the buttress of the bridge. The county commissioner happened to drive by, he informed me that I was not allowed to cross the right-of-way with any private fencing. There were people driving from the road along the creek and making a mess, this was an attempt to keep people out.

That being said I see many people (nearly everyone) fencing all the way to a bridge, but technically the right-of-way is government property. 

As far as legal access I have no idea, but I know you can not cross private land to gain access to the water.

Too much open ended nomenclature in the law about this.  

Pretty sure you are completely correct.  There are a lot of things that county officials are letting landowners get away with when it comes to fencing.  The infamous 47 Highway bridge on the Mineral Fork was fenced off by the huge landowner that owned everything for a mile or two in every direction.  To their credit, they put up a sign that read that you had to have a valid fishing license to cross the fence and get to the water...they were trying to stop the constant partying, littering, drunkenness, and drug use at that spot, which had great road shoulder parking and nice clear water for swimming, while still allowing some fishing access.  None of it was legal, but county officials let it slide.  Unfortunately, it did nothing to stop the partying, so I don't know for sure but I suspect that the landowner had enough pull in county politics that they got the county to post no parking signs all over place and put a stop to all access.

[tjm]

Any thing that is suspected as being not legal should be taken to court. Any creek that has not been taken to court can be assumed to not be public access just as easily it can be assumed to be public access. Get up a case and press for a ruling. Do that for any creek that we want to access. Once the courts make a ruling, there is no longer any doubt and the landowners will know where they stand. 

[T.J. Clarke]

Naturally you move on when confronted with a person like this.  My point was to cover your bases if you CANNOT get out of the situation.  I would never encourage one to carry a weapon who does not wish to.  Just the opposite.  

[BilletHead]

14 hours ago, tjm said:

Any thing that is suspected as being not legal should be taken to court. Any creek that has not been taken to court can be assumed to not be public access just as easily it can be assumed to be public access. Get up a case and press for a ruling. Do that for any creek that we want to access. Once the courts make a ruling, there is no longer any doubt and the landowners will know where they stand. 

       I'm not sure this is a good thing to try or not. It could start some ramifications that we could not stop. Laws can be changed to the better or worse. We could very well end up like Wyoming on all streams. Just something to think about. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

As far as local goes.  I think the local police and judicial system would side with the land owners that pay taxes in that county.   Not some yahoo from KC nobody around there knows.  

[Terrierman]

2 hours ago, BilletHead said:

       I'm not sure this is a good thing to try or not. It could start some ramifications that we could not stop. Laws can be changed to the better or worse. We could very well end up like Wyoming on all streams. Just something to think about. 

One tenet of running a business with sometimes clients that can on occasion be a little iffy is to never ask a question that you might not like the answer for.  Actually that's a pretty good life guideline too.  Plus there is no way I'm ever getting a lawyer involved on creek access anywhere near.  There really is a difference between bad and worse.

[Al Agnew]

21 hours ago, tjm said:

Any thing that is suspected as being not legal should be taken to court. Any creek that has not been taken to court can be assumed to not be public access just as easily it can be assumed to be public access. Get up a case and press for a ruling. Do that for any creek that we want to access. Once the courts make a ruling, there is no longer any doubt and the landowners will know where they stand. 

Nope.  In the present political climate in MO, that's very likely to result in LESS stream access, not more.  MOST floatable streams are well known to be floatable, and pretty much accepted by the landowners, even though they may have ideas that they can keep people off their gravel bars when legally they shouldn't be able to.  But there are plenty of stream sections that are no bigger or slightly smaller than the section of the Meramec that was featured in Elder.  I've floated most of them.  They aren't served by outfitters and they don't have great public access.  So they don't have a lot of people who would kick up a fuss if they were closed down, unlike the streams serviced by outfitters.  It wouldn't surprise me in the least if courts, especially county and appellate courts, decided they should be off limits.  I have no idea whether the MO Supreme Court would side with the appellate courts or not, but that's almost certainly where it would have to end up.  And that, friends, costs big money.  

The way that Elder v Delcour happened, the person who was seeking to have the right to float the stream was the plaintiff, the landowner the defendant.  In this case, the trial court sided with the plaintiff, which paved the way for the case to be appealed to the appellate court.  Had the trial court sided with the defendant, that would have probably been the end of it, and the stream section in question would have been closed to floating.  The appellate court reversed the decision, and it then went to the Supreme Court where the final decision sided with the trial court.  Now, I suspect the county trial courts would side with the landowner.

There was a push by the one legislator a few years ago to get the streams delineated as "navigable" or not by the legislature, not the courts.  THAT would have been a disaster for access and floaters' rights, and fortunately didn't get very far.  (And by the way, "navigable" is another term that means nothing in MO stream access. The Supreme Court specifically stated that the stretch of stream in question was NOT legally navigable.  But then said that did not matter, because essentially, it WAS floatable and fishable.)